Hey folks
I love, love, love not having channel numbers with DirecTV Now. Alphabetical order is way better as I know that I'm going to find, for example, BBC America under "B" instead of some arbitrary number.
Would it be possible to ditch the channel numbers and just do an alphabetical sort ?
Thanks
Pete
I agree with this. I have using some of the Streaming Apps like DTVN, Philo, Hulu etc. And they all use Alphabetical order. Maybe a option for sort order?
However, another option would be to have the Favorites listed first in the allowed custom order.
Philo does this with Favorites (not sure about custom favorite order).
I definitely like having numbers for local channels. Alphabetically as an option would be okay.
If you mark the channel as a favorite, you can order them however you like... although the video shows this for the on now screen, the favorites tab of the grid guide maintains the same order.
I think this is a great idea! Although, I would recommend keeping the channel numbers and adding the option to choose how channels are sorted. Sorting options could include:
Call letters/channel name
Channel number
Content type (news, sports, kids, etc).
The problem with content-based filtering with the guide is that it only takes into account the content of the currently airing program; subsequent programs displayed in the grid may have different content types. (There is currently no way to define the content or type of an entire channel.)
Also, this type of content-based filtering already exists, both on the "On Now" and "Guide" screens.
Also, sorting by call sign can be difficult, too, as the same channel on different lineups may have different call signs. (This is most likely to affect Prime and TVE sources. Although, on the opposite side, I can see the benefit of call sign differentiation when you receive two or more different channels of the same network/affiliate OTA.)
@racameron I hear what you're saying about the content-based filtering. And I get that you can go to the various tabs in the On Now section. But it might be nice to scroll through the All tab and see all news grouped together, all sports grouped together, etc.
With the addition of TVE- Which is AWESOME, btw - I now have east coast/west coast versions of channels that are ordered by channel number in the guide. Consequently, they are nowhere near each other when scrolling through. If you could sort by call sign (or channel name, maybe?), they would be grouped together.
Just my opinion. If it can't be done, it's not really a big deal. Having to scroll through a lot of channels is definitely a first-world problem!
I see this as a UX nightmare. When time/programming changes occur while browsing the guide, would channels suddenly shift and move their currently airing content type changes? Or would a channel then have multiple entries, based upon previous content types that were airing when the guide was opened but are no longer valid?
The best way to achieve this type of guide sorting would be to favorite all of your channels, and then manually group your channels together based first upon the content that is normally/regularly aired on that channel, and then secondly based upon the name of the channel. Then, when you choose "Favorites" in the guide, it will have an alphabetical listing of your channels grouped by content.
(In general, that is what many cable providers do, grouping the lifestyle, sports, news, movie, etc., channels together in blocks. When I was running Tvheadend as my DVR server, that is pretty close to what I would do: Channels numbered below 100 matched their broadcast channel number, and above 100 channels were grouped by general content type, with each new content type starting a new block of 50. So, dramas and the like were 101-150, lifestyle channels 151-200, sports 201-250, etc.)